We're All Monsters
by morethenwords122
Summary: "We're all monsters, Bruce…" His father said darkly, holding his blood covered hand gently against the curve of his mother's lifeless cheek. Her limp body was propped up against the armrest of his dad's beat-up recliner, and his gun rested against her shoulder. "Some of us are just better at hiding it," Those are the very words that ring in his head when he meets Natalia Romanov…
1. I- Tell-Tale Monster

He was nine years old when his father looked him dead in the eye, his mother's blood splattered all over his face and arms. His breath was hot and thick as the smell of lab chemicals and whiskey filled up his youthful nostrils, making him want to gag a little.

"We're all monsters, Bruce…" His father said darkly, holding his blood covered hand gently against the curve of his mother's lifeless cheek. Her limp body was propped up against the armrest of his dad's beat-up recliner, and his gun rested against her shoulder. "Some of us are just better at hiding it," He added, the cocking of his gun vaguely muffled against the blood stained fabric of her clothing.

"You go on remembering that, Bruce…"he whispered softly in conclusion, still holding his wife close to him and looking his son dead in the eye. His voice sounded incredibly… well, _sane_ … for a man who had just murdered his wife in cold blood. His tone was almost melodic, soft and sweet. Perhaps most remarkably, he didn't look like the crazed, abusive man that Bruce had always known. He looked tired and resigned… almost as though he had been waiting for that day… the day he would no longer be able to hide his true self.

That knocked Bruce off kilter… especially because he could also see the underlying comfort and love that his dad was trying to project to offset the horror that his young son had been witness to. So Bruce nodded his head a little, trying to show his father that he had some understanding of what was happening. He hesitated, making sure that his father had finished speaking to him, and could then run to lock himself in his room. He never wanted to come out again.

He knew what was going to happen before his father even pulled the trigger. And a few moments later, he did …

* * *

The police found Bruce two days later, sitting in a drying pool of his parents' blood. The carpet and the recliner were stained red with it and their bodies had begun to decay and reek in the summer heat.

He was watching cartoons.

* * *

Bruce moved from one foster home to another before he finally decided to run away on his fifteenth birthday. It wasn't because the foster families were bad or abusive; mostly they were actually pretty nice people. Hell, after having had to live with his dad, almost anyone seemed like an extraordinary person… It's wasn't even their fault that he was shoved off to one foster home after another.

It was because he didn't belong anywhere. He unnerved people with his intensity, his love of staring and observing people. The fact that he hadn't said a single word since his parents died was also another strike against him. Not just at home, but everywhere, these things assured that he would always feel like an outsider.

He'd realize through observation that most people—normal people—relied on affection and touch. It was obvious in the way that jocks clapped each other on the back when they played great on a night's game, in the brushing of shoulders in intimate and friendly ways, and in the hugs that parents gave out without hesitation to show their love. People sought out those forms of comfort unconsciously… as though their very being required it to thrive. There was none of it in Bruce's nature.

Unexpected touch made him flinch away like he'd been burned, he stood as far away from people as he possibly could, and hugs made his skin crawl. He couldn't stand to be touched, held, or cuddled… It just wasn't in him to be loved unconditionally and it was not fair to subject nice, normal people to all his damaged parts.

So he packed his bags when his third foster family in a month fell asleep and slipped away in the night, taking his problems and all his dirty, unnatural things about himself, but feeling more free and alive than he had been his entire life.

He just wasn't meant to be around people.

* * *

Two nights later, wet concrete is against his back as rain pours from the sky, soaking him through the thin material of his corduroy jacket. And he dreams. It's a simple dream… nothing special. Just beautiful open spaces, grass and cows for miles, and the real feeling of being free and happy on the open road with the summer breeze whipping through his curly hair… but even in his dreams, he can still taste the sharp sting of loneliness in the back of his head—the unbearable part of himself that he just can't seem to run from.

He wakes up slowly with raindrops dripping from his eyelashes onto his cheeks and that sharp edge of self-awareness that he isn't any less alone… freer than he's ever been and surviving… but not any less lonely.

He accepts it and moves on to start the day. But Bruce actually remembers his dream for the first time in years.

* * *

America makes him feel caged and depressed; his home country holds too many memories for him… It reminds him of lazy summer mornings dancing around the kitchen with his mother—her voice soft and humming as he giggled, her dark curls shining in the morning sun and her face looking eternal. And the days before alcoholism had taken over his father, locked away in the basement of his lab, staring at beakers and test tubes, smelling the familiar chemicals that he had grown to associate with his father, papers thrown everywhere as his father stares at him lovingly, asking his prodigal son questions that no other five-year-old would normally know.

He's finally able to leave America about two years later, relief gripping him tight in his gut. Those are the nostalgic memories swirling around in his mind when he buys a one-way ticket and boards a boat to Mexico.

Just as with his foster homes, Bruce floats from country to country, from Asia to Africa—settling down for weeks to months at a time. While there, he helps some of the desperate civilians of those towns he settles in when and how he can… patching up wounds, playing sports with the local kids, and offering his troubled friendship… Just because he doesn't seek out companionship doesn't mean that others don't seek his and he's more than willing to respond to their extended hands… within reason.

He doesn't offer his name or profound conversation and they don't ask him for it… he just shares what's not damaged and they take it willingly. And when he can no longer stand being himself, normality and routine making him feel smothered… his restless nature begins to take over, making him itch to leave, move, and never return, never stop.

The odd companions that, if he was normal, he would call friends, don't keep him and, more often than not, give him up with a big and beautiful farewell. Nobody can own him, no matter how much he cares… and these souls understand him well enough to condone this part of him and set him free the best they can.

Life is unbelievably simple out in these third-world countries and, each time, he almost feels something akin to sadness and guilt over leaving that kind of peace behind, taking from the land and its people, without giving anything back when they give him everything… but he doesn't allow himself to dwell on it.

He can't give what he doesn't have…

* * *

His aimless wondering leads him to Russia; it's cold and bleak. The air and atmosphere are unforgiving, not giving him an inch of love and space, and he immediately hates it.

Something about Russia rubs him the wrong way, grips him tight and won't let go without taking everything but his blood and bones. A dark and ominous force has taken Russia's heart, making Bruce feel caged almost instantly and he wants to escape, leaving the country behind as a distant memory. But he has no money and nowhere to go until he does so, with heavy reservations, he decides to settle down in a small village near Moscow, where fish is the main source of income.

He's an outsider, an American outsider no less, and he's met with glares and Russian curses wherever he goes, shouting at him to leave and not to return. He has to practically beg one of the locals for a job… but he gets one, setting the shouts he has received to work, and uses them to get himself out of Russia as fast as he can. He wants to leave every bit as much as they want him to depart.

* * *

Ivan Petrovitch is the reason that Bruce decides to stay in Russia… He's influential among the village of fishermen that he's settled down in and he likes Bruce, so by proxy the people of that town begin to respect and like him as well. Ivan has big weight in the drug circles of Moscow, Dublin, and Petersburg, and he's willing to extend that hand to the reclusive and reserved Bruce.

 _"You look like a guy who knows how to keep a secret," he says cryptically, when Bruce raises a quizzical eyebrow at Ivan's offer of a job. "Plus Juan says that you're the most trusted and diligent worker he's ever had… and in a village made of all fishermen that's saying something," he drawls, smiling when Bruce just shrugs his shoulder and sets out to begin gutting the incoming load of fish._

So Ivan is the one who gives him his first 'off-the-books' job. It's small... simple. It isn't really hard to deliver a quart of cocaine from point A to point B by a certain time and to a certain person. The only real 'hardship' Bruce faces is having to remember a sixteen digit password to recite off to the middleman, but Bruce's eidetic memory serves him well when it comes to that.

Ivan gives him another drug run two weeks later.

* * *

He's looking down the barrel of a gun on his fifth drug run. Leroy Adams is a fat and vile Irish drug lord with an incredible case of misplaced paranoia and he immediately pegs Bruce as someone untrustworthy.

He can't blame him. Leroy is a complacent man who expects order and routine; he needs someone or something to rely on… So, when an unknown kid comes up to him with a duffel bag of heroin and a look of boredom and indifference on his face, Leroy is already on the defensive.

Bruce just sighs, _Drug Lords… strange breed,_ he muses as he drops the duffel on the ground, and raises his hands up. His posture is relaxed but alert as one of Leroy's bodyguards search him.

* * *

Two months into working successfully for Ivan, his co-workers on the docks trust him enough to let him know about Ivan's rumored connections to an underground agency called The Red Room.

The company is an extension of the KGB, they say, but more secret… more deadly. Girls trained from early childhood to be master assassins, experts in the game of subterfuge and espionage… ordinary orphans given a purpose to serve their country and serve it well.

But one girl stands out among the others of the infamous place … Her codename is Black Widow, her real name: Natalia… Not only is she legendary at such a young age, but she's unbelievably beautiful, deadly.

"I meet her once, free agent now," one of the old timers says, a wide grin on his face as he de-bones one of the fish from the new catch. "Ivan likes to work with her when he needs her skill set, likes to teach traitors a lesson. She's quick and efficient, serves her purpose, and has a beautiful face and body while she's doing it."

Bruce can tell by the tone of his voice that he's proud of this, slightly turned on, and finding excitement in it… and it unsettles Bruce. It seems unnatural for people to be trained to be monsters.

* * *

His brain is ruled by logic and science… everything has its place in time, its rightful order of business. He guesses that's why he never really cared when people of higher caliber would sneer at him in disgust because of his messy hair and dirty clothes when he was younger; it was his place to be gawked and glared at. He was below them… Sometimes he still is.

So naturally, he doesn't believe in things like the afterlife, reincarnation, or near-death experiences. They don't follow laws of science or the order of logic; it's just blind faith that has edged them into existence… Bruce just doesn't have the capacity and heart to follow things unproven blindly.

In his mind these things are just not plausible but, in his weaker moments, he allows himself a brief luxury to wonder if he'll ever see his mother again. If there is a place like heaven awaiting him in the afterlife… or is hell all he'll be offered? He remembers what his father had said to him before he blew out the back of his head.

And still, to this very day, he takes his father's last words to heart—the only piece of wisdom the old man had ever given him really—turning them on himself, shoving them in his face and the faces of others. He wonders why none of the other drug lords and master criminals that circle around Ivan don't look twice at him, just accept him into their circle with open arms… His lanky and relaxed nature doesn't provoke mistrust or suspicion in them... they actually admire that in him.

 _"We're all monsters, Bruce…"_ And it isn't until now, when he's surrounded by drug dealers, thieves, and hitmen in his everyday life that maybe his father is right. He's always been hiding, running; it's second nature… a defense mechanism ingrained in him. But is he hiding from himself too? _"Some of us are just better at hiding it."_

Is he one of those people? In a room full of monsters who visibly embrace that side of themselves, is he the only one hiding among them? He doesn't look like all the others that inhabit Kiev's Traven… bulky and rough around the edges, always looking to knock two heads together or plunge a knife in the back of an unsuspecting, unwise tourist daring enough to put his foot in his mouth.

Bruce knows what his own reflection looks like; he looks like a mild-mannered college student who's just exploring the outside world for the first time. His eyes soft and resigned, a world-weary view of the universe wrapped up in a defined face with horn-rimmed glasses. If you put him into an expensive suit and shove him through the doors of a high society gala, he'd fit right in… but there's also _something_ underneath all the polish and refined demeanor, something dangerous… and deadly.

He holds himself like a caged animal, beaten down until there's nothing left except to explode and destroy everything in his path. He's a ticking time bomb, a chemical mixture that has an innate sense of chaos, with his hand ready on the detonator… the wire stopping from imploding is frayed and impossible to cut and keeping him from blowing up.

So he finds himself, broken porcelain of a barroom toilet imbedded in his hands, trickles of blood on his knuckles that are beginning to swell. His body shakes with rage as he stands over the barely conscious man who decided to get smart and violent with him. When Ivan asks the man for his money as the guy lays writhing on the floor in pain, he's not surprised. He's a monster with a bad temper and he's ready to explode; this unlucky man won't be the last one hurt by his demons.

Ivan just smiles at him, looking on with pride… like he's seeing his son win a Little League game for the first time… and Bruce ignores the small ping of happiness he feels at that look.

He can't fight his nature, but at least it finally makes someone proud.

* * *

 _You're a monster,_ his mind echoes over and over again every day of his life… and those are the very words that ring in his head when he meets Natalia Romanov…

TBC...


	2. II- I Dream Of Silence

Bruce can tell that the depictions told of her live up to the legend. From the moment that she walks into the bar, she has an air of death about her, a born sense of intimidation and manipulation. She's young and unbelievably beautiful. Far too exquisite to appear in a place like Kiev's, a dirty tavern where the lowest of low lives gather to hang out, she stands out enough to turn patrons' heads, ignoring the potential danger of rape in the dark alleyway behind the bar.

If Bruce had a choice, he wouldn't come to a place like Kiev's either, but when Ivan has no use for him, it's the only place that a guy who isn't looking to be seen can find other types of 'Off the Books' work that Bruce could live on and actually thrive… the kind of jobs that pay in cash only and don't require him to speak or say his name as well.

The other thing that Bruce notices about her is the fact that she's staring at him, intensely and with purpose. He has a feeling that Ivan has sent her to collect him for a job and she confirms this when she slinks over to him and says in Russian, "Ivan sent me," her voice cold and professional.

He tries to keep from frowning as he struggles to make sure he understands her **;** he's horrible at Russian. He raises his eyebrow, "W-w-what do you want?" His voice stutters from frequent disuse and his Russian is so horrendous that she actually rolls her eyes at him.

"Your Russian is terrible," she sneers in his native language, but he can tell that she doesn't speak English often because her accent is so heavy that he still has trouble understanding her.

"What do you want?" He repeats in English, taking the insult for what it is—truth.

"Ivan needs you for a job," she says in response, seizing him up with a peering look. It's as though she is trying to read his body language, read into his soul. He figures that she's trying to find out what Ivan sees in him, why he trusts him. He's nothing special, he knows, and she's probably wondering what there is about such an ordinary, lanky boy that would provoke a personal summons from such a powerful man that he would send the infamous Black Widow to fetch him… and if his judgment is well placed.

Bruce just shrugs nonchalantly, trying to hide the fact that her intense gaze makes him deeply uncomfortable, and begins walking out of the bar, not waiting for her to follow.

She raises her eyebrow at his dismissive gesture, but follows him anyway.

* * *

Bruce soon finds out that working with the Black Widow is like being let in on a secret that only a very few know about. The Black Widow is far more deadly than legend has led him to believe. She's quick… killing with lightning speed, a flick of her hand, and a flashing glance from her beautiful, green eyes.

Six men are already lying in a pool of their own blood not even five minutes within infiltrating the warehouse, and all he can hope for is that he doesn't get caught in the crossfire of her murderous path.

* * *

Not all the men die instantly. They need a few of them alive to get the information that Ivan is seeking from the brutes guarding the warehouse… and once the Widow is done with them, Bruce is left with handling the few who are unfortunate enough to still be breathing after her brand of interrogation and torture.

The men with broken necks are immobile and suffering; others have half their large and small intestines spilling all over the floor. Both stink of the blood all over their bodies and muddying their clothes. He kills them quickly, one bullet through the brain or the heart. He figures they deserve some kind of peace in their death.

But there's one stubborn man… one who stares down the infamous Black Widow's torture with hard, steel eyes. He never screams or begs for her to stop like the others had… and he never gives the Widow what she wants. He just stares and stares…

And Bruce is pushed back into the past by the man's stare. He's nine-years-old all over again, and he's staring right at his father's lifeless face—his mother's blood staining the walls, the couch, and his face—while his father is staring back at his horrorstricken face with that same cold, bored look in his eyes and… Bruce feels himself quivering to the bone with repressed memories. He wants to wipe that smug look off his face, punch him hard in the face to the point he breaks bone, and make him wish he was never born.

He wants to kill this man, who isn't his father… because he looks too much like him… but he can't, because he doesn't know this man. He's never done anything to warrant such a reaction from him. He isn't the one he wants to kill. He simply isn't his father.

So Bruce becomes rigid with his unchecked rage, telling himself to rein in his emotions and be professional. He's a reasonable, logical kind of man, and there's just no reasonable, logical explanation for wanting to slit this man's throat wide open and watch as the man bleeds to death. So he simply doesn't act on this swirl of emotions for that reason alone.

And when the stupidly brave man finally gives the Widow what she wants, after half-an-hour of nonstop torture, Bruce isn't exactly as forgiving as he was with the others when he puts a bullet through the man's carotid artery and watches him bleed out all alone on the warehouse floor through his peripheral vision. He completes the mission with the man's blood slicked against his loafers and a strange sense of calm order about him.

* * *

"You're way too calm," Natalia says a few hours later, during the drive back to meet Ivan with the stacks upon stacks of cocaine, heroin, speed, and other various drugs that they'd taken from the warehouse storage. He had methodically placed all the drugs in alphabetical order in the trunk of the vehicle they had driven there in… with the Black Widow's deadly gaze locked on him the entire time.

The way she says it makes her sound uncertain and leery, deeply cautious of him. He can tell what conclusions she coming to; he's way too comfortable about the killing and the blood, the leaked guts that she had spilled all over the bedrock floors of the dingy warehouse, and the brain splatters that had covered his trousers and shoes.

He briefly looks at her from the corner of his eye. The blood of various faceless men is drying on the right side of her beautiful face. Then he goes back to focusing on the road ahead of him; letting the silence be his only response.

* * *

Ivan likes the work he and Natalia did with the warehouse job, beaming and smiling like a kid at Christmas, with all the stacks of illegal drugs they had collected filling up the empty corners of his office. He makes plans for them to work together more often than either of them is really comfortable with. He can tell that Natalia likes to work alone by the slight twitch of her sculpted jaw, and Bruce doesn't want to be that close to her on a more permanent basis.

He views her like the sun: long exposure is more than likely to wither him out and kill him.

* * *

Bruce dreams of his mother in bed that night. He hasn't dreamed of his mother in years; his father is a frequent visitor, countless beatings of his childhood coming along with him… but not his mother. She's too pretty for his dark and cruel mind to dream about, but he dreams of her that night all the same.

He dreams that she's alive and happy—the beautiful woman he remembers that she had once been –glowing like the sun and smelling like the green grass of earth, soft and cool against his heated cheeks. He dreams that she had escaped his dad and found a new man who treats her better, that he himself is just as happy and free about loving as she is, thinking of this unknown and faceless man as his new dad.

He gets to experience a normal childhood in his dream, seeing himself winning various science fairs and getting a full ride to some Ivy League school with his mind's eye. His mother is extremely proud of him… and the unknown man is smiling at him the same way that Ivan had that day in the stall—warm, sly, and proud.

But then he wakes up and is smacked with the realization that he's himself again… a lonely, monstrous fool and he forces himself to put his priorities back in order. He wants to scold himself over something that he really doesn't have any control over but… there just isn't any room for such wishful thinking.

* * *

Bruce quickly begins to resent working with the Black Widow; her presence in his life makes him unfocused, dazed, and off his game. She makes him dream sick dreams and makes him hope for an impossible thing: companionship. He begins to realize just how lonely he feels when she's around, and he doesn't like it.

Why? He doesn't know; maybe it bothers him so much because she doesn't seem to be affected by his presence as much as he is by hers. She rocks the ground beneath him, shaking loose things he had long ago repressed into the deepest, darkest corners of his muddled mind. He's been alone for so long that it's like second nature to him now and he doesn't like the foundation of that solitude broken down.

She shouldn't affect him as much as she does; it isn't like they're close. They don't speak to each other, not unless they need to talk to get the job done. Hell, the most they're likely to get out of each other in any other circumstance is maybe a curt 'hello'.

She doesn't speak words of wisdom to him, nor does she given him praises, like Ivan does. She doesn't radiate love, warmth, or _freedom_ like she does in his frequent dreams. She isn't even nice to him, preferring silence and solitude over his presence. She leaves him be. She is nothing to him… and yet… she is.

Because the more Bruce is forced to work with her, the more he's able to separate and tell the difference between Natalia Romanov and the Black Widow. The Black Widow is deadly and emotionless, she wouldn't think twice about killing him if he got too close to her during her rampages or betrayed her. The Black Widow does what she's told to do, a mindless weapon that is used for the purposes and needs of violent and controlling men, who admire her prowess and beauty.

Bruce isn't blind, and he's certainly far from stupid. He knows that Ivan sometimes asks her to attend to his baser instincts that have nothing to do with anything other than his selfish needs. He knows that Ivan isn't the only or the first man to ask this deed of her…He also knows that Ivan won't be the last man either.

And while this fact doesn't bother the Black Widow… it does disturb Natalia.

She may be just as deadly as her counterpart, but she isn't emotionless and she doesn't like to be used for the needs of horny, depraved men. Her emotions on this are vague and well-hidden, but they're there… and he knows that she hates it. He knows that she's has been taught from an early age to be used however and whenever anyone wishes of her to be used, and then to be discarded when there is no more need for her.

She has no control over this ingrained part of her, the part that takes orders in whichever manner they are given to her; sexual or otherwise is of no consequence to her deep seated need to not be thrown away until it's on her own terms… and that lack of control also extends to how men choose to view her. She has no firm grip on that concept any more than he has on his unbinding rage, and it bothers her to the root of her core.

Natalia is even more of a control freak than he is, and the fact that she has no control of this aspect of her life unnerves and confuses her. It leaves her weak and vulnerable, and he knows that some days it gets to her more than others, like today.

They're forced to work another warehouse job; the goal this time, Ivan says, is a shipment load of advanced weaponry from Stark Tech that he plans to sell off to some radicals in Afghanistan.

The job won't be nearly as violent as the other job had been, Ivan reassures them, mainly because he has an inside guy this time, who is willing to sell the weapons for a modest but hefty, but reasonable, price. They all quickly decide to let Natalia make the deal due to the fact that it's already been well established that Bruce can't speak Russian worth a shit and that's the only language their contact _can_ speak.

The deal starts off pretty smoothly. The Widow is professional and firm; she tells the dealer right off the bat that she will not pay him more then what Ivan had originally offered for the weapons, but Bruce can tell immediately that the man is greedy and thinks very lowly of women, and he isn't surprised when the man begins to try and outsmart her as he haggles for a higher price on the deal.

The man also has a disgusting leer directed right at her breasts on his equally disgusting, greasy face and it's setting Bruce's temper on edge. Disrespect to women, wither they can break a man's arm in three different places or not, is one of Bruce's deep rooted pet peeves and this man is grinding violently against it.

It gets to Bruce so much that he actually speaks up without thinking. "You'll take whatever she's offering, you prick, and you'll motherfucking like it!" He sneers without stuttering—something he can only achieve when he's mad enough to spit nails—and glares at the man, who has absolutely no fucking idea what he just said… But the Black Widow— _No, Natalia_ , he corrects himself… he's definitely looking into the intense eyes of Natalia Romanova When she turns her head and looks at him —knows exactly what he's said and she sends him a small, genuine smile in return for his words. Her thankful smile makes him blush to the root of his toes, unnerving him deeply but it sets the dealer's paranoid nature right off and soon he starts speaking loud and violent Russian that Bruce only has a vague understanding of.

But he can tell a sexual proposition, actually more like demand, when he sees one and soon the man's trying to make her get down on her knees and give him a blow job. Bruce is strung tight with anger and about two seconds from making sure the man is completely useless to any woman ever, when she cracks the dude's skull open with her knuckles with in a swift and hard punch.

And that's when the job takes a violent turn, with the injured man cursing violently at Natalia for splitting his head wide open and her kicking him square in the ribs, breaking bone and telling him to shut the fuck up before throwing the guy's money for the deal on his bloody mess the man's head has become.

She looks at him a moment later, her dark red hair plastered to her forehead in sweat, her eyes wild and alight with the thrill of a fight won and her excitement is suddenly infectious, making him giddy and fidgety, like a livewire is being run through his veins, humming with renewed life and purpose. Her green eyes are still dancing around in satisfaction and glee when she orders him to be useful and start grabbing the weapon cases. He's so high and affected with the pleasure of her exuberant high that he just does what she asks, a slight twinge of some indefinable emotion budding in his chest, making his stomach lunge and churn with nerves.

The screaming and ranting dealer lay forgotten on the floor, for her and that beautiful, awe-aspiring glint in her clear, green eyes.

* * *

He feels like he's passed some important test of hers, given an essential part of placement in the Black Widow's and Natalia's book… something almost akin to respect and alliance when she throws the car keys at him and they rush out of the warehouse before the greedy dealer can call in back-up. She asks him to drive, giving him her trust and complete control of the situation, almost like she can sense that this is what he needs to feel useful, like he's actually protected her somehow. She even allows him to open the car door for her.

* * *

He dreams of that marvelous, wicked look in her eyes for two weeks straight afterwards.


	3. III- Star Quality

_"Bruce…"_ A familiar voice beckons, calling out to him softly in the darkness of his sleep-idled mind, like a whisper in the wind that almost chills him to the bone. He wants so badly to believe that it's real, like someone's _finally_ showing him mercy, calling him to heaven to see _her_ again… finally sending him home. " _Bruce, sweetie…"_ the voice calls out again as he shifts in the sleeping bag, his body lulled by the rhythmic swaying of the fishing boat, soothing away his work-day aches, rocking him to a place somewhere between slumber and consciousness, drifting into the deep recesses of his mind—to that bittersweet place where childhood memories lay… the ones that he's kept locked away from himself for so long.

 _"Bruce, honey?"_ He looks up, his brow furrowed and his eyelids droopy. It's his mother. She's calling him…

 _His mother calls to him again in the darkness of the tree house, the sound of the door latch closing behind her as her heels click softly against the old wooden planks. She bends down next to him, her sweet perfume wafting in the cold night air and into his nostrils._

 _"Bruce, sweetie…" Her voice almost sings to him, despite the hoarse undertones that signaled the shouting match that she must have gotten into with his father after he had retreated to the tree house. His father had come home drunk once again, ready to beat on whichever one of them had been unfortunate enough to get in the way of his ranting and raving about how much simpler his life would be if he didn't have to support a co-dependent, mousy housewife and a socially inept child … and like always, Bruce had been the one stupid enough to be the catalyst that had Brian Banner throwing the first punch._

 _"It's too cold for you to be sitting out in the tree house like this, sweetie. Come back inside…" Bruce turns away the half swollen part of his face that had taken the hit, inhaling the fresh air through his bloody nose. The November cold lapped at his curly hair, fogging up his glasses and easing the unbearable throbbing of the sickly yellow and purple bruise forming over his left eye from his father's misplaced punch. He held his stuffed dinosaur closer to his body, burying his bloody nose into the toy's head of fur as tears continued to stain his cheeks and drop onto his torn sweater, intermixing itself with the sporadic trickles of blood that were littered across his undershirt._

 _"I made your favorite for dessert…Peach cobbler…" she coaxes sweetly, her fingers carding through his thick hair. "You don't even have to wait for dinner to have some…" She chuckles softly in his ear, her thumb rubbing circles in the nape of his neck._

 _He has to stop himself from jerking away from her touch. It feels like fire against his bruised, pale skin._

 _"Why do you stay with him?" Bruce asks suddenly, unable to keep himself from forming the question and letting the words push past his chapped lips. He hadn't meant to ask her that. He just couldn't bite his tongue anymore… not when bitter curiosity gnawed on the inside of his brain._

 _He wanted to know. He_ _ **had**_ _to know._

 _"Bruce, don't…" he heard his mom sigh against the wind, her words panicked and desperate as her fingers stalled in the tuffs of his black hair._

 _"He hurts us, Mom…" he trudged on, not heeding the desperation in his mother's voice. His words were muffled against the plush material of the T-Rex in his lap as he turns towards her, a pensive look on his face. "He hurts us real bad…" he sniffled, new tears welling under his eyes._

 _Bruce had always been close to his mother. She was the only person in the entire world who truly thought that he was worth something. That he was much more than that odd, brainy kid that all the other people at school thought he was. That he wasn't a worthless piece of shit that would amount to nothing but a lingering regret that he had the burden of knowing he had created like his father so often said. She treated him differently, like he was someone that she could talk about anything with, and get an honest-to-God, adult answer from… but when it came to his Dad's destructive rages…_

 _It was the one topic that he could never get a straight answer out of her about. It was as if Mom actually chose to acknowledge the fact that Dad was an abusive drunk, who only cared about himself, it would make it all the more real to her. Because the bruises they both took great care to hide before going out into the world weren't_ _ **reality**_ _enough for her. She refused to let it force her to open her eyes, reevaluate the life that she's spent with the man she loved, and finally come to accept that it was time to leave that life behind and start a new one._

 _Bruce loved his Mom deeply. Even at seven-years-old he knew that he would most likely die for her if it would ever come to that. He'd do anything to protect her from harm, knowing that she would do the same too… So WHY then, did she let in every night…the one person that should have never hurt them in the first place? She knew full well that they were more than likely to get their teeth knocked in by a steel-toed boot for their troubles than an actually hug from that man._

 _She shook her head violently, her matching dark curls bouncing wildly on top of her head._

 _"You're so young, sweetheart," she said, turning away from his peering eyes. "You just… you don't understand…" she paused, biting one of her fingernails. "Your father's a good man," she said with the conviction of a dying woman, "A God fearing man, who's just lost his way, lost his faith due to life's curve balls… but with our love and understanding, Bruce… he'll find himself again." She finished, her brown eyes shining with the unrelenting promise of a better future… a better life. She looked almost innocent and child-like in her belief, her brown eyes pleading with her seven-year- old son to understand her position on the subject._

 _She stared at him, her bright eyes begging for compassion… and he wished more than anything that he could give that to her…but he couldn't. He didn't have enough faith and understanding for his father to believe that things could ever get any better than they were right now._

 _"You're Dad loves us, Bruce…" She sighed, "And in time, I hope you'll see that." She whispered, clenching her hands against her chest, almost like she was praying to God that he would understand the lesson that she was trying to teach him, but Bruce couldn't help but internally scoff at her. He was not budging on this one bit. If God knew his dad, than he knew that the man was past deserving any of God's life lessons… or of God's love._

 _"Yeah, well, I know a jerk when I see one." He scowled, looking back down at his toy again, at the wall on his left… at anything other than the heartbroken look upon his mother's face._

 _"Bruce…" she said, her voice sounding like she was on the verge of tears._

 _"And Dad doesn't love us!" He spat, angry at the guilt that ripped through him for upsetting his sweet, dear mother. "He hates us, blames us for his own failures… it's not our fault…" Bruce breathed, as his anger built, choking, and tearing him up inside. He was just so mad all the time, raging at everything and anything—at the way his dad made their lives a living hell, at the way his mother put him above everything else, above herself, for falling for his lies of promises for a change that would never come._

 _He felt so powerless, constantly wound up, a deep seated rage boiling underneath the surface of his being, heating him up on the inside… ready to spill over and just waiting for the day that the spindle on the back of his sanity slowly unwinds itself and he explodes…_

 _He shivered against the cold growing in the small space of the tree house. He feels so powerless. He feels so_ _ **old.**_

He hates me _, Bruce thinks quietly in the silence surrounding him,_ and I hate him.

 _"Bruce… Bruce, look at me," She says urgently, her cold fingertips gripping the uninjured side of his face. She's pale, her pupils blown wide open as a look almost akin to horror passes across her face. She looks scared, like something has frightened her. Bruce blinks, confused by the way she's looking directly at him as a look of sheer terror continues to encompass her face._

 _"Mom…" He croaks, his mouth dry. His tongue feels like it's trying to attach itself to the roof of his mouth as his field of vision starts to wave in and out of focus. "Mom!" He exclaims, his own terror beginning to build alongside the anger deep inside him. He wants to know what's happening… what's wrong. Why is she looking at him like that? Why does she look like_ _ **he's**_ _the one causing it… like she afraid of him?_ Oh, _he thinks briefly_ _as his hands swim back into his view. He's shaking. He's really shaking bad. He_ _ **is**_ _the one scaring her._

 _"Bruce. Bruce! Look up…"she yells, her screams barely audible over the loud roaring in his eardrums. "Look at the sky," she says, gripping his face tighter as a deep, dark blackness begins to descend upon him, trying to shallow him whole. "Bruce! Look up at the sky! Tell me what you see!"_

 _"What…?" he answers shakily, his mind blank as his hands clenching and unclenching at his side, as that pitch black nothingness draws near, ready to consume him. "Mom?"_

 _"Come on," she shakes him, pushing his face toward the tiny window of the tree house. "Look up. Tell me what you see," she says, turning his face closer to what she wants him to see._

 _He does. He looks, but all he sees is a dim, fading light swimming in and out of view. The picture is wet and blurry through the hot tears that had somehow begun streaming down his face. He can't see much, that unnamed creeping darkness still seemed like it was trying to catch him_

 _But he's looked at the sky so many times that he can take a guess at what he may be looking at, "I see the stars…" he says, his voice uncertain, doubtful. He doesn't want to disappoint his mom. He's already done enough of that for one day._

 _"Yes," she whispers, his tone almost giddy. "What else?"_

 _"They're glowing," He heaves, his breathing harsh and awkward as his heart still rat-tat-tats in his chest. "And there… there… in the sky," He points, his limbs stiff, like they're tied to the end of a cement brick. Her fingernails still hold his face tightly, the pain of her tight grip slowly washing over him, brings him back to himself. "And they're shinning bright for everyone to see…" He stammers, his words feeling like lead at the back of his throat. But his vision begins to flow back into a slight semblance of focus; he's able to see what he's looking at a little better. He's able to wrap his mind around what he's seeing, random facts slowly filling his mind… slowly helping him regain his body's functionality._

 _"Did you know that stars don't actually twinkle?" he asks, smiling a bit. His mother quizzically lifts her brow, her expression turning fond… loving. "It's just earth's atmosphere effecting the stars scintillate. Stars must pass many layers of earth's atmosphere for us to see them with our naked eye," He gestures wildly to the first star he sees in front of him, "So, the rapidly differentiating densities cause the stars natural light to get into our eyes and appear brighter than it actually is."_

 _His mom chuckles, her fingers once again dancing in the depths of his hair. Bruce nods eagerly, taking it as a sign that he should continue. "One star, Sirius, twinkles, sparkles, and flashes so bright that people initial reported it as a UFO." He smiles as everything snaps back into place. He can breathe again, the anger and fear tucked back into the little cubicle in his brain that he reserves just for those emotions, locked away. He knows that they will return, grasp tightly around him and stronger than ever… but they're gone for today… back where they belong. "It's kind of a beautiful type of irony when you think about it…" He finishes primly, almost bordering on pretentious, but his mother's look of happiness and wonder at his knowledge cancels it out._

 _She's proud. She's proud of him again. "You can see the beauty in anything, Bruce…" she says, a touch of awe laced in her vocal cords. "Don't ever lose that quality, sweetheart. It's what makes you unique…"_

 _He grins._

 _"I love you, Bruce…" She hugs him._

 _He hugs her back tighter. "I love you too, Mom…"_

 _"Bruce," she sighs. She feels wet against him, soaked. Her grip loosens._

 _"Mom…" He furrows his brows, confused again. He pulls away too, looking up at her. His eyes widen. She's bleeding. There's blood everywhere. He looks at his hands. They're shaking again. They're shaking with blood on them._ _ **Her**_ _blood._

 _"Mom, what's wrong?!" he cries, the panic and the fear and the anger once again rearing its ugly head. "Where you going?!" He asks as the blackness creeps in, taking him as she fades in within it._

 _"Bruce…" She sways dangerously to the left, her face obstructed by the blackness. He can only see the left side of her body, her finger limply playing in the spot of blood soaking her dress._

 _His panic grows. Where is she going? "Mom…"_ Come back _, his mind whispers, trailing off into that void along with her. He can't speak. He can feel everything building into a scream._

 _"Brrrucee…" her voice lingers as she fades, distorted by the abyss as she completely goes from view. The darkness is taking her… She's gone…and he's next. It's already half eaten him now anyway. "Mom!" he yells desperately as it creeps closer, ready to devour him… to take him alive. The blood from her dress stains his hands and, like everything else, won't disappear from view. His anger grows. Everything grows within him into a towering empire of darkness, turning on him, eating him until there's nothing left but visions of red and green fill him up and spill like blood from his entire body… the rage… the_ _ **green**_ _… eats everything, destroys everything… but his blood stained hands. It glows like the stars, twinkling, an invisible light that slowly drives him mad. The green… it takes everything and gives nothing but blood and broken bone... matter smeared into the pavement… Those bloody hands are all it allows him to see._

 _"We're all monsters, Bruce…" His father's hollow voice echoes in the darkness... in the red and green. "Monsters… Monsters… Monsters…" His voice slips away, further and further and further..._

"Mommmmm!" Bruce jerks awake, crying, yelling… an animalistic scream building in the back of his throat, requiring him to let it out at the top of his lungs. _The green_ , his mind swirls manically, _all he sees is green_. He cries again, stumbling over his sleep lazy feet as he turns toward the edge of the boat, his insides churning. The once rhythmic, smoothing motions of the boat are now making him sick to his stomach.

He stops himself short of almost toppling over into the frigid ocean below him as he tries to puke his guts out anywhere except inside the boat. He doesn't want to have to clean it up in the morning. His body slumps against the edge as he dry-heaves. He's tired; his vision swims in and out again like in his dreams, tears, and anger. He's so tired…

He coughs and the vomit that won't come out stings the lining of his esophagus. He heaves again, wheezing a little at the taste in the back of his throat.

 _"Look up at the sky, Bruce…"_ Someone whispers to him, and he does. He squints as his eyes narrow to a point. He stares up at the sky. He can see the stars' dim light shining back at him, their glow bright enough to pass through the tears… pass through the _green_ that runs through him, chilling him to the bone.

He can see his Mom staring back at him, her expression fond… and loving. He throws up again.

* * *

As months pass—with many more of his nights plagued with on-going nightmares, always of his mother… and of a green, bottomless void—more mindless jobs come his and Natalia's way. The dealing and selling of drugs and weaponry alike come and go in his life with rapid success as the shared cut that Bruce receives for a job well done continues to build up in the ratty old sock he stuffs underneath what he's dares to call his pillow on a raggedy ass excuse for a carter boat.

Bruce knows he doesn't have enough money saved up to leave Russia yet, but it also feels kind of wrong to sit back and allow the money to pile up unspent, and for anybody to just take away from him. He wonders briefly about investing the extra money in renting a room up at the hostel nearby where most of Ivan's made men live or, at the very least, in buying himself a quality cot to sleep on instead of the torn up sleeping bag that Ivan gave him to combat the solid structure of the fishing boat's floors that Juan allows him to call home…

But in the end, he quickly discards both of those ideas. He needs all the money he can muster up to get his ass the hell out of Russia as quickly as possible, and besides, sleeping on the ground isn't too bad.

He has a nice view of the stars that way…

TBC...


End file.
